WINNERS, LOSERS IN THE WAR OF SEX

How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex. Cristina Page. Basic Books.

$24. 236 pp.

In the wake of the South Dakota bill outlawing virtually all abortions, an analysis by The New York Times found little effect in teen abortion rates in the six states that introduced parental involvement in the last decade. Furthermore, of the 560,000 women who used the RU-486 "morning after" pill, only six have died. All this has put the debate over abortion back on the nation's front burner.

Those on the pro-choice side of the matter will be shocked by Cristina Page's partisan investigation, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex. In a mere 168 pages, she identifies the ways in which she thinks the pro-life doctrine has diminished not only women's rights to reproductive freedom, but also the general quality of American life.

Page documents her research with more than 40 pages of footnotes, including citations from the Centers for Disease Control, medical journals, Congressional records, and reports from the World Health Organization. While it may be possible to disagree with her conclusions, no one can say Page hasn't done her homework.

In those conclusions, Page serves up a powerful condemnation of the pro-life movement's influence and methods, largely by showing the well-financed, politically powerful, religiously motivated campaigns that have helped shape legislative decisions. And abortion, though pro-lifers may be sincere in their opposition, is a stalking horse. What they really want to control, Page argues, is sex.

One of the strongest aspects of this book is Page's demonstration of the way public relations and media manipulation trump truth and expertise in any American debate. It's quite easy, if you know how, to persuade the public of the existence of a problem, where none really exists.

For example, if you think the pro-life movement's primary goal is to stress the humanity of the unborn, think again. Their real aim is to foist abstinence on the entire nation. It's a doctrine that ignores realities of human sexuality and, by withdrawing instruction about condom use, safe sex and general principles of sexual health and hygiene, leads inevitably to higher rates of teen pregnancy and STDs.

That means the pro-life movement, intent on imposing one morality on everybody, has actually been responsible for increasing the number of abortions and teen pregnancies. Here are some other examples, as compiled by Page, of the surprising effects of the pro-life movement:

The pro-life lobby caused the defeat of federal legislation to require health insurance companies to pay for contraceptives.

Pro-lifers were the only opponents to legislation to provide pregnancy prevention assistance to rape victims.

Most of the Senate opposition to the Family Medical Leave Act came from pro-lifers.

If you don't believe that pro-lifers want to make it illegal for you to buy condoms, then consider the movement's claims that condoms fail to prevent disease because "condoms are full of holes." When they think no one's listening, the pro-life movement brags of "350 affiliates operating to discourage condom use in African countries with the world's highest rates of HIV."

What they don't brag about is the one salient fact about abstinence: It doesn't work. Page cites a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health that shows that although in abstinence-only programs teens wait on average 18 months longer to engage in intercourse, they do still engage in "porn-star sex." These "virgins" she writes, "are six times more likely to have oral sex than non-pledgers, and male 'virgins' are four times more likely to have anal sex than those who do not take the pledge."

Perhaps the most unsettling example is the false accusation of the small Virginian Pro-Life Caucus in 2002 that triggered the Bush administration to freeze all U.S. funding of United Nations Population Fund. "According to one calculation," Page writes, "the loss of the $34 million adds 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths each year to the world's toll of suffering. It also results in about 800,000 abortions each year, most illegal and unsafe."

All of this gives the lie to the idea that pro-lifer's are motivated out of compassion for the unborn child. At a time when there is "widespread agreement among health experts and many economists that a cure for many of the world's ills is voluntary family planning," the pro-life movement works to eliminate family planning as immoral.

Page predicts that if the citizenry, legislators and judiciary do not recognize the social and medical realities of the abortion debate, then the pro-life movement will exert a far-reaching and deadly influence far into the future.

Tara Kai is the author of the novel Dar es Salaam. She lives in Miami.